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economy, more resilient, constitutional, stable government that is capable of withstanding the radical taliban and other elements. one of my questions, madam chair, is going to be questioning the sustainability of the efforts. congress has appropriated over $60 billion for relief and reconstruction in afghanistan. the great majority of which has been channeled through private contractors. we know from experience in bosnia in the 1990's and more recently in iraq that a reduction in troop levels as not mean a drop in contractor activity. in some cases, it is a matter of increase. there has been increase reliance on contractors to fulfill the logistical roles once performed by the military in those instances. eventually, the contractor presence will also decrease as we move support of large-scale off-budget scanned it -- spending to more direct to the afghan government directly. this is why our reconstruction strategy must focus on insuring that afghans can sustain what we have helped build. how many additional schools and health, as we can construct, but also that there are teachers and health c
economy, more resilient, constitutional, stable government that is capable of withstanding the radical taliban and other elements. one of my questions, madam chair, is going to be questioning the sustainability of the efforts. congress has appropriated over $60 billion for relief and reconstruction in afghanistan. the great majority of which has been channeled through private contractors. we know from experience in bosnia in the 1990's and more recently in iraq that a reduction in troop levels...
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Jul 1, 2011
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notwithstanding the radical taliban and other elements. one might questions -- and i am sure you will talk about that and the sustainability of efforts. we invested heavily as americans to achieve the goal to build up afghan petitions since 2002. congress has appropriated $60 billion for relief and reconstruction and afghanistan. the great majority of which has been channeled through private contractors. now we know from bosnia and iraq that a reduction in troop levels does not mean a drop in contract activities. in fact, there has been an increase. in fact, there is a reliance to perform logistical roles. essentially, the contractor presence will also decrease as we move our support of large scale -- off-budget spending to more direct budget aide to the afghan government directly. the strategy must focus now, more than ever, to assure afghans are able to sustain what we helped to build. we must consider, not only, how many additional schools to construct but also whether afghanistan will have teachers and medical professionals to sustain
notwithstanding the radical taliban and other elements. one might questions -- and i am sure you will talk about that and the sustainability of efforts. we invested heavily as americans to achieve the goal to build up afghan petitions since 2002. congress has appropriated $60 billion for relief and reconstruction and afghanistan. the great majority of which has been channeled through private contractors. now we know from bosnia and iraq that a reduction in troop levels does not mean a drop in...
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Jul 1, 2011
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are you aware of the statement by the taliban? >> i am, sir. is the president's announcement of this winstrol make your job -- if confirmed, i assure you will be -- harder, more difficult and challenging or easier? >> senator, that is a difficult question to answer. >> i'm sure it is. that's why i asked it. >> not been confirmed yet or being the commander, have no ability to access with great accuracy of this particular moment. as the chairman said, the announced decision was a bit more aggressive than we had anticipated that he supported the decision congenital petraeus supports the decision and is working now to begin the implementation of the decision and we anticipated the forces would be coming out and there's a lot that has to happen between now and the end of this year and the end of the purpose of the drawdown. >> i appreciate that and i appreciate your answer. >> i talked to probably 20 retired and active-duty military leaders since the president's announcement made to the challenges are enormous the question is whether we will still b
are you aware of the statement by the taliban? >> i am, sir. is the president's announcement of this winstrol make your job -- if confirmed, i assure you will be -- harder, more difficult and challenging or easier? >> senator, that is a difficult question to answer. >> i'm sure it is. that's why i asked it. >> not been confirmed yet or being the commander, have no ability to access with great accuracy of this particular moment. as the chairman said, the announced...
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Jul 1, 2011
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it was taliban territory it from day one that the u.s. came into -- >> why didn't you do the same thing on this road? >> our experience working on roads in the area indicated that it was not like -- >> once you figured out it was, why didn't you go back to the drawing board and do what you had done in the previous incident? >> senator, i think that is a great question, and my understanding with this hearing is getting to the lessons learned. going back to my opening statement, where i said we cannot just look at the metric of scope schedule budget, there comes a time when we probably should have stepped back and said, we have to change the scope, because we need to get the road and, but maybe there's a different way of getting it done. what ended up happening is we all went into a reactive mode. we had the security situation and had to increase the security of footprint to prevent that particular situation from happening again. from the lessons learned, we had to recognize how the security environment can change relatively quickly in the
it was taliban territory it from day one that the u.s. came into -- >> why didn't you do the same thing on this road? >> our experience working on roads in the area indicated that it was not like -- >> once you figured out it was, why didn't you go back to the drawing board and do what you had done in the previous incident? >> senator, i think that is a great question, and my understanding with this hearing is getting to the lessons learned. going back to my opening...